Questions over the ‘absolute chaos’ on the Isle of Wight’s highways have been raised after hundreds of roadworks started in each of the first 3 months of this year.
Labour councillor Jock Rafferty asked ‘what went wrong’ at the economy, regeneration, transport and infrastructure committee (ERTIC) last Thursday (23rd July) following a presentation from Island Roads.
Jimmy Wells, network manager for the service provider, told councillors over 12,000 applications to work on the highways were received in 2025/26, with around 1,000 coming through a month.
A total of 7,934 permitting applications were granted in 2025/26.
Cllr Rafferty said:
“Looking from the general public’s point of view, it looks like there’s absolute chaos on the Island’s road. Is this as good as it gets? Is it going to get any better?
“Are we going to be expecting this for the next five years?”
Simon Moon, strategic director of community services, responded:
“I’ve been in post three months now and I’m very clear that roadworks – what’s going on is a major issue for residents, businesses and all members of this council. So, it has to improve.
“We have a responsibility as the highway authority with our partners, who we ask to deliver these services through Island Roads, to first of all deliver our own works in line with the best practice that we can possibly adopt but also hold utility companies to account.
“Some of my reflections of what I’ve seen in the first three months is we’re not doing that consistently and strongly enough with some of these utility operators.”
He said any utility company will say there is an ‘emergency’ and can get onto the network ‘quite quickly’.
But referring to statistics shared by Island Roads, Mr Moon said that while a lot of the works are probably ‘urgent’ they are not emergencies.
He said:
“We need to call that out, I don’t think we’re calling it out”.
The officer said a lot of resources and pressure has to be applied to tackle this, with ‘some tough conversations’.
Mr Moon added that if these don’t take place, matters will not change which he said was not ‘acceptable’.
